Doing Nothing

It is I 

I have a confession to make. I've been avoiding my blog, circling it as though it were a dangerous wild animal, looking at it sideways, pacing before it. I had a fabulous experience that I could have been blogging about. I finished a 30 day Bikram Yoga Challenge. That's pretty amazing! I started on December second and finished just in time for New Year's Eve on the thirty-first. It felt so good to end the year with another major accomplishment under my belt. Why, then, wasn't I blogging about it?

I'm thinking as I write and I'm realizing that perhaps I was actually rebelling against the driven over-achiever's culturally embedded imperative to always be producing. Without planning it, without acknowledging it, even, I took a break.

In the middle of the Bikram Challenge I started thinking about the next challenge. I needed to have something in place so that I didn't fall into idleness and wreck my goals for lack of planning. I had ideas. A jump rope challenge, a plank challenge, trying out a new style of yoga. It turns out that when I finished the Bikram Challenge, I was finished. I felt no motivation to jump into the next thing.

It has been nearly a month since I have done much of anything. Only now do I realize just how much I needed the down-time. I feel so much more creative and effective. I'm brimming with ideas for my classes (the new semester starts next week) and I have a couple of articles in the works. Yes, I know. Of course. Duh. Everybody knows this. Knowing is only a tenth of the battle.

This break was not my choice, really. I was scheduled to teach a class over the winter session at the institution I serve. The class was cancelled and I found out (due to my own distracted state) too late to line up another gig. I spent a few days panicking and then decided that I was not going to wind up wandering the streets. I had resources; I would use them. And then, uneasily, fretfully, I allowed myself to rest.

Although I have pretty much stayed on course food wise (no dairy or gluten but more carbs and fewer vegetables than I really should do), I've only worked out once since I finished the Bikram Challenge. I planned to make a bunch of videos and even set up my studio. I recorded myself singing one song, took a couple of pictures (see above and below) and that was it. I spent the rest of the time on marathon Hulu sessions and Facebook. I enjoyed being snowed in during the Great Polar Vortex of 0'14. Occasionally I left the house. Last week I started busking again. I'm going to need the money to cover what my savings don't cover until I get my first paycheck sometime in mid February.

Really resting is still new to me, believe it or not. United States culture has a prejudice against resting anyway (the local word for it is "lazy") but at least the tradition of a taking a vacation (inhumanely short though it might be) does exist. Thing is, my family, being from overseas, never caught on to that tradition.  My parents were both students and then both working. We never took an actual family vacation and I never learned how to truly give myself a break. Generally speaking, I work pretty much non-stop.

That ends this year - with one caveat. Next time I will be better prepared so that I can take a month off without worrying about my bills. I will be deliberate about it. I plan to have no plans. Doing nothing is highly underrated. Try it if you can.

This Intentional Happiness Lifestyle Design Thing

Some people do well living life without particular goals or a sense of purpose. I am not one of those people.  I have been making plans since I can remember.  At the start of every year in grade school I would inventory my clothes and create a chart detailing which outfits and hairstyles I would wear each day.  At the beginning of this year, I created a chart to detail what I would eat each day, making sure that each meal was based on the key ingredients in each week's grocery list. Each week of the month features a different vegetable and legume.

Fifteen years ago I created a seven year master plan that saw me through graduate school. And then things fell apart (the moral of the story being: Make longer master plans). Falling apart took three years (I'm stubborn) and I have spent the five years since then trying to figure out the meaning of life (and why everything happens in odd numbers of years).

When I picked up Tim Ferriss's book "The 4-Hour Work Week", I was married, had a house, a dog, a husband, his car, was paying two mortgages, and was a corporate law firm associate on Wall Street. Having a child was the next goal - just like it was supposed to be. Looking back, I see how I was following the rules that our society insists is the right one: Wait for happiness, plan for success. So there I was with all this success, a ton of responsibilities, not a lot of happiness, and this book that says, dump it all, be happy. I read the book eagerly then put it aside. It all sounded great but . . .

Life took care of all that stuff for me and now it is time for a new plan.  I've had five years to think about it and here is what I've come up with.  Rather than planning for success, I am planning to be happy. With every part of the plan, the central question for me is, will I be happy?

There are three major parts to the plan:

• How I shelter myself
• How I give and receive value
• How I care for my embodied Soul

How I shelter myself will likely be the most challenging aspect of this Intentional Happiness Lifestyle Design. It will take the most planning and take the longest to achieve so I'm starting with that.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly developed the urge to live on a bus. I can't remember exactly how it happened but I learned of people who have transformed buses into amazing living spaces.  It took another couple of weeks for me to understand why I feel so passionately about living on a bus.

Leaving my house is one of my least favorite things to do. I love to be at home. By myself. With a good book, or writing, or watching a movie.  At the same time, I adore traveling and exploring new places. Living on a bus allows me to travel and be at home at the same time! It is perfect!

Here is an example of a truly impressive bus conversion.  It's like the Taj Majal of buses.

There are other options. For example, check out this tiny house on wheels. What I love best about this video is hearing the home builder and owner, Dee Williams (who owns fewer than 400 things) talk about why she was inspired to live in a tiny house and what doing so does for her. Her explanation basically describes why this kind of living would contribute to my happiness. She is my hero!

I'm giving myself three years to achieve this goal. I need to raise money to build whatever it is I decide to build and find the expertise to help me do the work. That leads me to my upcoming blogpost: figuring out how to pay for this project!

P.S. No, this is not a three year plan. I've learned my lesson. There is actually a forty-year plan in the works. It involves splitting time between two different continents, becoming a farmer, having 100 children, and living in a hut. Yes. Really.